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2,000 ha of peatland in Bengkalis catches fire
An investigation team found the recent smog blanketing Singapore and Malaysia originated from peatland belonging to farmers in Bengkalis, Riau province
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n investigation team found the recent smog blanketing Singapore and Malaysia originated from peatland belonging to farmers in Bengkalis, Riau province.
The fires burned more than 2,000 hectares of fire-prone peatland areas, which had been converted for business purposes, the investigation found.
The investigation was conducted by the Environment Ministry in Dusun Sejati village, Bengkalis, after neighboring Singapore and Malaysia complained about haze from Indonesia.
The team, however, did not investigate fires in other regencies in Riau, which activists said occurred in concession areas of oil-palm plantation and industrial forest concession (HTI).
Environment Ministry deputy minister for environmental damage, Arief Yuwono, said the fires spread out of control due to poor preventive measures taken by local administrations. “We recommend civil service investigators to find the main actors of fires [in Bengkalis],” he said.
The team also advised the need for further investigation to determine if fires also took place in oil-palm plantations and industrial forest concessions (HTI) in Riau province.
Analysis by WWF Indonesia revealed that the fires were still rampant in both HTI concessions and oil-palm plantation areas.
“Forty-one percent of fires occur in local people’s farms but the remaining were found in concession areas belonging to oil-palm plantations and HTI in Riau,” head of forest fires at WFF, Hariri Dedi told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
“The some hotspots in HTI were recorded in areas encroached on by local people. It shows HTI holders neglect their concession areas,” he said.
Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta earlier pointed out most fires in Bengkalis were set by local farmers practicing the slash-and-burn technique.
The team had found no hotspots in Bengkalis since Sunday.
Riau is one of the 10 most fire-prone provinces in the country where haze is usually thick in dry seasons. Other vulnerable provinces to fires are Jambi, South Sumatra, North Sumatra, Central Kalimantan and West Kalimantan.
The government has promised the international community to cut emissions by 26 percent in 2020 by slashing 20 percent of hotspots annually.
